An image of San Rafael, painted in 1780 by Spanish soldier, cartographer and engineer Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, is among the oldest examples of the santero tradition in New Mexico in existence. Miera y Pacheco came to Santa Fe in 1754 in service to Spain, and his creation was originally commissioned by Doña Apolonia de Sandoval, a prominent Santa Fean; it's now in the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. Miera y Pacheco is considered the first santero in New Mexico.

Commissioned to create rerados (altarpieces), bultos (figures carved in the round) and retablos (icons of saints painted on wood panels) by private citizens and by the Catholic church, saint makers of today continue the tradition of early santeros like Miera y Pacheco.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, saint makers had developed a distinct visual vocabulary that included a lexicon of popular saints. As devout Catholics, santeros lived and worked close to the church. According to art historian Charles Carrillo, a barrio that was home to a collective of artisans and other woodworkers stood across from St. Francis Cathedral in downtown Santa Fe. "The entire district was where all the woodworkers of Santa Fe lived," said Carrillo, whose work is the subject of a book, Charlie Carrillo: Tradition & Soul/Tradición y Alma by Barbe Awalt and Paul Rhetts. "It was one extended family and they controlled the entire woodworking scene. In short, it was a guild."

During Spanish colonial times, artisans who painted or sculpted images of saints were called pintores or escultores. "Colonial documents have lots of references to some of the great santeros being referred to as pintores," Carrillo said. "The word 'santero' was never used during the colonial period. That word was introduced by Anglo patrons in the 1920s and '30s."

The railroad in the 19th century brought manufactured paints and dyes and pre-cut lumber, and these commodities changed the lives of some santeros. Traditional saint makers had used natural pigments to color their work, and these had to be gathered and ground by hand. They included egg temperas, oil colors and vegetal dyes, and their preferred panels were made of soft woods such as cottonwood and pine. "That (original) tradition continues from the 1750s uninterrupted until the present," said Carrillo, "even though people say it died in the 1900s."

Not all practicing santeros, including Carrillo, depict saints within a strict iconographic lexicon. He sees room for innovation in techniques and imagery. Contemporary artist Luis Tapia, for instance, depicts ordinary people in artwork intended as social commentary. Early in his career, Tapia was criticized by other santeros for introducing bright colors and acrylic paints into his work. Tapia no longer exhibits with the traditional Spanish Market because of the market's strict guidelines for materials and techniques.

"I started dealing more with social issues and issues relating to the Catholic church," Tapia said. "My work was getting more intense with regard to those issues." In 2008, Tapia exhibited Man Without a Heart, a sculpture ridiculing the hypocrisy of pedophile priests who continue to administer religious rites, as part of an exhibition called ¡Orale! at the former Owings Dewey Gallery.

But the santero tradition has always seen trends. Figures such as San Isidro and the Virgin of Guadalupe have always been popular, while santos like San Pasqual are more popular today than in Spanish colonial times. "I've never seen a San Pasqual from colonial New Mexico," said Carrillo. "They don't exist."

Today, the traditional market allows more innovation than it did in the 1970s, when Tapia exhibited there. "They're allowing the artists to be more creative, which is what they should have done since Day One," he said.

Images of the santero are an enduring tradition, Carrillo said. "There will always be a place for these devotional paintings. But then there's going to be the clients and the galleries who enjoy seeing things that step out of boundaries. So I think there's room for everybody."